CONDITIONAL LOVE

True love is unconditional, zero expectation. It’s a wholehearted love, adoration, unselfish.

Unconditional love about communication. If you love someone truly, and if you’re a good person, then you want to see the other person happy and flourishing, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Communication is kind and lacks judgement. There’s no room for mind games, no time to withhold how you feel, no space to create doubt in the other. It’s about honest and transparent communication of feelings, the alternative is about control.

Unconditional love is not complete without self-love. Security and self belief are a good foundation to love another. It means you’re already whole and don’t need to take from another to feel good. It’s loving someone deeply for who they are, not for what they do for you.

Conditional love waits for a return. It leads to resentment, bitterness and disappointment if expectations are not met, unattractive qualities.

Conditional ‘love’ is not love in my eyes. Conditions mean control and control is not a way to love. Control is dissatisfaction, it’s a desire for change, manipulation and that’s a warped type of love. Manipulation is abusive, it plays with another soul, it’s confusing and isolating. NOT love.

Conditional love is not love. Unconditional love is where it’s at.

SECRETS

Secrets are for kids. If only that were true. Adults are bigger than kids, and sadly, so can the secrets be.

‘Secret’ sounds quite innocent, almost fun, something a little naughty but in a good way. Then there’s the kind of secret that really should be called another name, deception. Those types of secrets are an ugly cloud of deceit, dishonesty and disrespect. They are the kinds of secrets that grow and escalate, hurt people, hurt families and destroy lives.

Feeling the depth of despair after uncovering a secret of magnitude is unbearable. Life becomes pin prick tiny, simple, black and white. Your capacity to focus narrows, your world slows down to almost a standstill while the rest of the world continues at pace. It’s disorientating and alienating. Lonely. It casts black shadows on all of your life, outlines fade. Trust. Broken.

Once trust is broken that’s it. What’s left after that? Nothing. Yeah sure there’s the memories and perhaps lost dreams, but even they’re tainted, tainted with the darkness that secrets and deceit leave in their wake. I struggle to see how things can align again. Personally I would always second guess, it would lead to vulnerability and insecurity. Vulnerability can be endearing but insecurity certainly is not.

For the person holding the secret, they may build up resentment to justify actions, become critical, irritable and aggressive. That was certainly my experience being on the receiving end. Once revealed, there was denial and than attempts to rationalise the lies. The cover-up was worse than the violations, just.

So, secrets. Don’t. Just don’t.